


Price

by Tasha_amazing



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Character Study, Deleted Scenes, During Canon, F/M, Fix-It, High School, Out of Character, Psychology, Teenagers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23119294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasha_amazing/pseuds/Tasha_amazing
Summary: Everything has a price. So at what price will the help of the most charming liar in Heather Duke’s life cost? She is trying to understand. He, as always, is silent about the most important thing and plays his cruel games.
Relationships: Jason "J. D." Dean & Heather Duke, Jason "J. D." Dean/Heather Duke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Price

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Цена вопроса](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/566584) by Ассасин тапочек. 



> Gift for my close friend Radizha, 'cause she deserved it and 'cause you need to see her magnificent picture of the characters.

Jason Dean narrow one eye, his lips twisted in a grin. He props his cheek with his hand and keep silent while the fire bursts. Cute baby photos slowly turn to ashes. Duke has a red jacket on her shoulders, a red scrunchie in her hair - a symbol of power. Not the imperial crown, of course... But the little Westerburg isn’t the British Empire either. However, she has enough.

And yet, there is something wrong. Something is wrong here and makes her anxious. What? Flame? Smoldering Gloss? Or a tablet with signatures in his bag?..

“You know, Dean... It's still hard for me to understand you. All you do isn’t an act of selfless virtue”. She turns away from the flame and looks into his eyes, trying to find answers there to her questions. But she finds nothing but guile.

He has beautiful eyes, demonic: gray-green, with brown specks and smoldering sparks of a night fire. Heather likes it. It’s difficult for her to look away, as if to a bunny from a boa constrictor. JD doesn’t interrupt their contact. He doesn’t move at all: he froze with a crafty statue and waits for what the newly-born The Hive Queen will do.

And she?.. She cautiously moves to him, not stopping looking into his eyes and, as bewitched, she says:

“So what, Jason Dean? Why is this city-level mourning day initiative? Why do you, a rebel and a loner, get close to the elite? Why do you need to mourn those who were some of it? Why are you, Clyde, helping the one who made your Bonnie howl in the bathroom?”

His gray-green eyes darken for a moment. From the depths no longer sparks burst - the tongues of a forest fire. One moment and he’ll turn into a typhoon, which will devour the whole Westerburg. Duke hears the blood pounding in temples, feels that she is about to vomit from the animal fear of this fire. She squeezes her head into the red shoulders, but in order not to give herself away, she finds the strength to tilt her round chin in an interested gesture. Heather knows this is pointless. She knows JD sees through her.

And she is ready to admit that there is something in this.

If Jason Dean wanted to become a local prince – he would be. Being able to play the necessary strings, he would take them all: from outsiders and the elite to the teaching staff. Jason has a talent for intrigues, knows how to manipulate a crowd no worse than a bitch-Chandler, Heather Duke knows this for sure. He wouldn’t even have to strain: if he would want to - in a month or two he would overturned Chandler and trampled her on everyone’s eyes. And then their whole small world would have seen her cry in the women's toilet.

Heather Duke doesn’t even know if she would pity her hated friend. Probably not. Who will say now?

But Heather Duke knows: she is incredibly lucky that Jason isn’t what he should be in her personal paradigm. He is a rebel and a loner. And that means that he needs the rotten throne of Westerburg High just like a dog needs a fifth leg. Good. Scavengers don’t need a competitor. But on the other hand... what the point then? What breaks off with his popularity? There is no logic in his actions. Or is there? She just doesn’t have enough puzzle pieces to put a whole picture?

What are you silent about, Jason Dean - a traveler from dusty midnight? What kind of fire are you hiding in your demonic gaze?

“How curious you are.” He finally says, leaning on the table, thereby reducing the distance between them to the critical. Heather is embarrassed. “I like curious women. Curiosity is a sign of reason. But, alas, I am forced to leave it unsatisfied”.

He’s flattering as easy as breathing. And that damn attractive. Heather likes it. She wants him to say something else so that she can forget about everything.

“No need to play your games with me. I am not Veronica.”

Which is a pity. Heather Duke always wanted to replace Veronica. Veronica Sawyer was Chandler's favorite pet; Chandler didn’t kick her like a dirty mutt and didn’t make her bent over in the middle of the dining room as a writing table. Now she is the favorite of the mysterious guy. And Heather also suddenly wanted to take this place.

A shadow lies between his eyebrows - small but formidable. However, the look is calm. Dark flames disappear in the depths of the gray-green stare into the brown speck as quickly as they appeared. Heather still doesn’t look away, mesmerized by metamorphoses.

Jason glances at her, as at popcorn in a shop window. Plain? BQ? Nope. These, no doubt, sacred questions, were asked by the Chandler’s errand girl. Heather is sure that Dean has long ago outgrown this greasy salted slag.

“Don’t worry, I will not take on your Candy land. We helped each other: I give you keys to power, you fulfill my small request, which went in your favor too. Wolves are sated, lambs are safe”.

He plays with earring with his fingers, and still looks ingratiatingly. Heather Duke exhales noisily. She isn’t the infantile fool like McNamara, who doesn’t cost anything to jump into the van to the good-natured pedophile ice cream maker. There is no free lunch in this world.

Heather wants to get to the truth for not falling into the trap, to save herself from unnecessary trouble in the future. But how can one think about the future when Jason Dean, the mysterious boy, touching his damned earring like _that_ , and his trench smells like cigarettes and gasoline? And his face is so close...

She bites her lip to lose at least a bit of obsession.

“Nothing is free of cost.”

Heather counts the pale freckles on his cheeks. There are very few of them. For some reason, she would like to mark each one of them with the imprint of bright red lipstick, and then look at Sawyer's distorted face. But first of all - to mark.

“Don’t be afraid, darling (Heather sighs noisily, she feels her cheeks blooming with poppy flowers, right in tone with her jacket), I don’t need anything from you. You just don't have it.”

She herself comes even closer to him, her plump chest is completely on the table, and she has to lean on her elbows. But nothing is visible in Dean's eyes except sparks and darkness.

JD and Heather almost breathe each other's lips. From strange feelings, surging in the ninth wave, her voice breaks into a whisper. “What does a person like you need, JD?...”

Jason Dean, grinning, leans toward her and, with a deceptive and affectionate movement, tucks an unnaturally curling strand behind her ear. Heather brings everything inside; instead of butterflies, a ball of centipedes are tossing and turning in the stomach. JD breathes hot, noisy and incredibly languid. Heather tries to focus her gaze from under half-opened eyelids on an earring – it’s so close and shining. Half the laziest movement would be enough for her to clasp it with her lips. This will surely surprise him, knock the ground out from under his feet. And then this cruel game will stop.

But Heather cannot. She lightly touches his palm (feels dry) with her little finger. JD, not stopping to breathe like _that_ , runs his nose through the curly mound and barely touches the tip of the ear with his lips.

Heather no longer matters what this rogue have on his mind. She doesn’t care why Sawyer broke up with him. She doesn’t care how much and how she will pay for such a land lease.

His lips (as dry as his palms) are near the auricle. Heather finally feels these fucking butterflies. They rise to the heart, filling the ribs, from which the pulse beats more often, giving in the temples with a drum roll.

“Never mind.”

He pulls away and rises above her. His eyes are indifferent, his lips twisted in a cruel mockery.

Heather wants to cry. The heart beats with indignation like a mouse in a cage, manicured nails dig into the palms. Butterflies just hatched from cocoons, they are at the bottom, ashamed and timidly folding their wings in the fall. They are devoured by centipedes, cracking their paws and the shiny shell chitin.

Jason Dean - an incredible rogue and a rare bastard - grabs his bag and turns to the exit, finally throwing. “Straight hair suits you more.”

Heather Duke doesn’t agree to end the rendezvous like this. You have to pay for everything in this world. Mom so constantly tells her. Since that day, as her girl's breast doubled. 

“Wait!”

JD narrow one eye in his fox manner. Heather hesitates for a moment, but still holds out her favorite book. ‘Moby-Dick or the White Whale’, Herman Melville, a jammed book with a green ribbon bookmark. Heather for some reason feeling bitter about giving it. But if this rogue doesn’t accept it, then it will be much bitterly.

“I don't need it anymore. A little gift for you.”

To her great joy (and crimson cheeks), Jason takes the book without delay.

He raises his eyes: sparks in them burn with fireflies. Even the nodules barely move. Heather is worried. And along with this - she is attracted to him. _Like a moth to a flame_.

“Thanks, sweetheart. Nobody has ever given me such presents.”

And he leaves without even saying goodbye.

After a quiet door slam, the beakers and the flasks is ringing in an unstable chorus. Like bells in a tiny mouse church.

Heather slowly licks his lips, erasing a dense layer of scarlet lipstick, and looks at the ashes in the sink with a look full of resentment and, at the same time, a hidden alarm.

The unfortunate book will not satisfy him. Somewhere deep down, in an alarming tangle of centipedes, the thought beats: didn’t she give him a new toy for another confusing and cruel game?

Jason Dean is a liar. Jason Dean is a manipulator. For him, his whole life is endless games and spools for which someone will have to pay.

Heather doesn’t know how, what, when, and, most importantly, _who_ will pay for this deal with the Devil's Foundling.

But she certainly knows one thing: there will be paying.


End file.
